John Whitehead, President of Rutherford Institute and Pilot Michael Roberts
Thank you for allowing me to take more than six hundred words to set up and share with you parts of my interviews with John Whitehead and Michael Roberts. I want to make a point about how progressives or liberal leaders appear to be missing in action. There are a few theories that I have as to why silence pervades the Democratic Party and many liberal organizations that normally would have opposed this if this had been the Bush Administration. But, first, some remarks from individuals who are taking steps to defend American civil liberties from state-sponsored molestation.
Whitehead is a lawyer who "engages in lawsuits where people's civil liberties are violated. You know, basically primary bill of rights issues." He is a key attorney behind a Fourth Amendment lawsuit that has been filed by the Institute against Janet Napolitano, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and John Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), "on behalf of two airline pilots who refused to submit to airport security screening which relies on advanced imaging technology that exposes intimate details of a person's body to government agents."
The Institute is representing Roberts and Ann Poe, veterans of the commercial airline industry, who refused to go through the Whole Body Imaging (WBI) scanners and also refused to be subjected to the enhanced, full-body pat- or rub-down. They insisted the procedures were a violation to their privacy and, since experiencing incidents on Oct. 15, 2010, and Nov. 4, 2010, respectively, both have refused to go to work until they are allowed to do their job without having their civil liberties violated.
Whitehead's justification for the lawsuit is as follows: "Based on the Fourth Amendment before you strip search or do full-body search on American citizens you have to apply the Fourth Amendment, which requires that there be some reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, that whoever you're patting down somehow are [likely to be] engaging in criminal activity. That's what the Fourth Amendment requires."
Unlike most Americans and government officials, Whitehead does not believe one has to give up his rights or civil liberties to fly. He understands that Americans find this to be true and he explains that he thinks Americans have "become very compliant" and notes that there are very few people like Roberts or Poe, who are willing to stand up and fight back.
Roberts, who has been running FedUpFlyers.org and receiving feedback from pilots, TSA workers and travelers, seconds this idea that Americans are too compliant and says that, while his colleagues and other travelers agree with what he is doing but say they can't stand up because "they have to travel for work" or they've "got a family to feed." He says they "hate what's happening" and "absolutely do not agree with it." But, the way it works, the ability to travel or put food on the table, is being held over their heads and it makes people who want to act out afraid of fighting back.
This, Roberts contends, is "terrorism." It's the definition of terrorism, which Roberts characterizes as "coercion by fear." The government is using "psychological stress and manipulation to make people comply with their abusive demands."
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